This is my next door Neighbors House in Bartow County. It was probably built in 1999. She hit the gas instead of the brakes. This garage has 2 headers so this could have been real bad. The bottom plate did move. She was quoted very high rates from contractors to fix it. I just took a sledge hammer and pounde it back. It took about an hour.

Why we Need Narrow Wall Bracing

Now Bolts might have helped, but if bolts were there, the studs might have seperated from the bottom plate causing as much or more damage. I like the brackets and bolts shown below. I wish the code would require these.

I have one major home builder that tells me he is opposed to arc fault breakers being used throughout the house as is required starting 1/1/2010. He says his cleaning lady can’t plug her vaccuum cleaner into a bedroom outlet becuase it allways trips the arc fault. I WONDER WHY!!!

Ok I have the HVAC line going into the Sanitary Drainge or Sewer. If it were a high effency furnace it wouldn’t need a trap primer. Now the trap primer shown below has holes in the side. The builder was trying to tell me that the trap primer has b built-in air gap and thats what the holes were for.

The Receptacle Outlet above now has a plate over it. In my opinion it was OK. The 2005 NEC says that

Now of course we would have to read the whole code section, but from above the outlets discussed are only the required outlets and this outlet is not required. This outlet is not required as stated in another exception.

Exception: Receptacle outlets shall not be required on a
wall directly behind a range or sink in the installation described
in Figure 210.52

I think this outlet was OK.

Exception to (5): To comply with the conditions specified in
(1) or (2), receptacle outlets shall be permitted to be
mounted not more than 300 mm (12 in.) below the countertop.
Receptacles mounted below a countertop in accordance
with this exception shall not be located where the
countertop extends more than 150 mm (6 in.) beyond its
support base.

This guy threw the original panel cover away and put up a decorative one on a basement finish. I would not pass his inspection. He ended up having to replace the whole panel due to not being able to find one. The house was from the late 1980’s